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WASHINGTON: The United States, the European Union, Britain and Canada imposed sanctions on Chinese officials on Monday (March 21) for human rights abuses in Xinjiang, the first such coordinated Western action against Beijing under new US President Joe Biden. .
Beijing responded immediately with punitive measures against the EU that seemed broader, including European legislators, diplomats, institutes and families, and by banning their companies from trading with China.
Western governments seek to hold Beijing accountable for the mass arrests of Uighur Muslims in northwest China, where the United States says China is committing genocide.
China denies all allegations of abuse.
The coordinated effort appeared to be the early fruit of a concerted diplomatic push by the United States to confront China in alliance with allies, a core element of Biden’s policy in China, which is still evolving.
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Senior US administration officials have said they are in daily contact with European governments on China-related issues, something they call a “European tour.”
“Amid growing international condemnation, (China) continues to commit genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement ahead of meetings with EU ministers and NATO in Brussels this week.
Canada’s Foreign Ministry said: “There is increasing evidence pointing to systemic and state human rights violations by the Chinese authorities.”
Activists and UN rights experts say at least one million Muslims have been detained in camps in Xinjiang. Activists and some Western politicians accuse China of using torture, forced labor and sterilization. China says its camps offer vocational training and are necessary to fight extremism.
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The European Union was the first to impose sanctions on Monday on four Chinese officials, including a senior security director, and an entity, a decision later mirrored by Britain and Canada.
Those who were also targeted by the United States were Chen Mingguo, director of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau and another senior official in the region, Wang Junzheng.
The United States had already designated last year to impose sanctions on the top official in Xinjiang, Chen Quanguo, who was not the target of the other Western allies on Monday, to avoid a larger diplomatic dispute, experts and diplomats said.
The foreign ministers of Canada and Britain issued a joint statement with Blinken, saying the three were united in demanding that Beijing end its “repressive practices” in Xinjiang.
The evidence of abuse was “overwhelming”, including satellite images, eyewitness testimony and the Chinese government’s own documents, they said.
Separately, the Australian and New Zealand Foreign Ministers issued a statement expressing “grave concerns about the growing number of credible reports of serious human rights abuses against Uighur ethnic minorities and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.” and welcomed the measures announced by Canada and the European Union. , Great Britain and the United States.
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FIRST SIGNIFICANT EU SANCTIONS IN DECADES
The move by the United States and its allies follows two days of talks between US and Chinese officials last week, which exposed tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
The EU accused Chen Mingguo of “arbitrary arrests and degrading treatment inflicted on Uighurs and people from other Muslim ethnic minorities, as well as systematic violations of their freedom of religion or belief.”
Others affected by travel bans and assets freezes were: senior Chinese officials Wang Mingshan, the former deputy party secretary in Xinjiang, Zhu Hailun and the Xinjiang Construction and Production Corps Public Security Bureau.
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The EU has tried to avoid confrontation with Beijing and Monday’s sanctions were the first significant measures since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, although Brussels targeted two hackers and a tech company in 2020 as part of cyber sanctions. more spacious.
The steps were praised by the United States. “A united transatlantic response sends a strong signal to those who violate or abuse international human rights,” Blinken said.
While mostly symbolic, the EU sanctions mark a tightening towards China, which Brussels considered a benign trading partner but now sees as a systematic abuser of rights and freedoms.
Britain has repeatedly denounced torture, forced labor and sterilizations that it says are taking place on an “industrial scale” in Xinjiang and repeated its criticism of Beijing on Monday.
“USELESS”
Beijing’s retaliation was swift.
The retaliations included sanctions against European lawmakers, the EU’s main foreign policy decision-making body known as the Political and Security Committee, and two institutes.
German politician Reinhard Butikofer, who heads the European Parliament delegation in China, was one of the most prominent figures to be attacked. The nonprofit Alliance of Democracies foundation, founded by former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, was on the list, according to a statement from China’s Foreign Ministry.
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Also included was Adrian Zenz, a German academic whose investigation was cited by the State Department last year as highlighting alleged abuses in Xinjiang.
The Netherlands summoned China’s ambassador to The Hague after Beijing announced its measures on 10 Europeans, while the European Parliament, along with foreign ministers from Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and others, rejected Chinese retaliation.
“These sanctions show that China is sensitive to pressure,” Dutch lawmaker Sjoerd Sjoerdsma, who was included on China’s sanctions list, said on Twitter. “May this be an encouragement to all my European colleagues: speak up!”
By having restrictions on entering or doing business with China, Beijing accused its targets of seriously damaging the country’s sovereignty over Xinjiang.
The 27 EU governments agreed to the bloc’s punitive measures, but Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto called them “harmful” and “useless”.
